Basic skin softening

[Galahad]

I predominantly shoot Sports but a couple of friends have asked me to do portrait/glamour shots for them. I have a shoot coming this weekend and so far I have not used any softening effects. Up until now, all I have had to use PS for was the standard sports stuff so I have never had any experience with layers, blurring etc.

Every post I have read on the subject assumes a more detailed knowledge of PS than I have.... could someone give me a workflow for softening skin, including the basic steps, like open a new layer (how etc!). I know there are a variety of methods, but if I could learn one step by step, I would like to think I could then go on and try to refine it for myself.

Thanks

[zero rc]

here is a very basic approach to softing the skin:
1. duplicate your original layer by dragging it to the "new layers" icon located at the lower right of the layers palatte. (its the one that looks like a page with the corner folded over)
2. run your favorite blur filter on it (i use smart blur or gausian blur). dont worry about going over board with it because we will adjust the opacity later.
3. still on your blur' layer, alt-click the layer mask icon. (its the box w/ a circle in it, located 3rd from the left in the layers palatte). this will fill your layer with a black mask. the image should now look like the original layer, because we have concieled the blur' layer behind the mask.
4. using a soft edged brush, start painting in white the areas you feel need the most softening. areas to watch for are the eyes and around the mouth, these should remain relatively sharp.
5. once you have painted in th soft areas, adjust the opacity of the blur' layer by adjusting the opacity slider located in the upper right of the layers palette. i usually back it down to around %50, but your tastes may differ.
viola (french for ta-da) you are done! hope this helps!!

[jfrancho]

A couple of step by steps found in the Editing Sticky:

Commercial Photography Commentary: Skin retouching without the 'mush'

Add power and precision to your editing with masks

[bobbyz]

Check out Portaiture plugin

Imagenomic Portraiture - Photoshop Retouching Plugin

[dgs]

Originally Posted by bobbyz

Check out Portaiture plugin

Imagenomic Portraiture - Photoshop Retouching Plugin

It is wonderful, I just purchased it. Now I am hooked.

thanks,
Danny

[Galahad]

Thanks guys, will be working on those... a quick question, when you use skin softening as part of your workflow, where would you do the sharpening. I've always been told it's the last thing you do, but if you are softening skin would you do it before to keep eyes etc, sharp?

Thanks

[jfrancho]

I do a slight sharpening of the edges only using Unsharp Mask with a an layer mask that protects the surfaces. Then I do any skin smoothing and cloning that is necessary. Then I selectively sharpen the eyes, and any other parts that need it. My last round of sharpening uses the high pass filter technique. I do this just after the resize for printing or the web. I generally use plain bicubic sharpening for down sizing, and bicubic smoother for up sizing. I follow the TLR method for sharpening: http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/...ningSkills.pdf.

[haraki74]

Excellent turotial zero rc, thanks